use real butter

Recipe: hunan tofu

At the beginning of the week you’re tip-toeing across frozen goose poop-laden grasses an hour before sunrise and by the end of the week you’re dodging fancy cocktails and flame throwers on a packed second floor of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. Oh wait, that’s me. I was shooting the Boulder’s Best Mixologist competition on Sunday. Quite a change of scenery.

one of the sponsors

hapa sushi’s station was hopping

the gals from the kitchen were shaking things up

oak was on fire

No matter if I’m on the road in Middle-of-Nowhere or navigating the great eateries in Boulder, it doesn’t take long before I miss a home-cooked meal. That’s partly because I am a homebody and partly because I know how to cook. I hear of people getting bored with the same five meals each week and wonder to myself when was the last time I repeated a recipe at home? It seems there are always new recipes to discover and try.

ingredients: green onions, tofu, garlic, thai bird chiles, country ham

shaoxing cooking wine, dark soy sauce, sesame oil, black bean sauce, cornstarch, chicken broth

I have been on the lookout for a tofu recipe for several years. My grandma always ordered it when we went to dinner at Chef Chu’s in Palo Alto: tender tofu slices fried then simmered in a sauce with some salty country ham, a little heat, some black beans, garlic, and green onions. They called it Hunan Tofu. I scoured my recipe books, looked online, and chatted with Grandma on more than one occasion about what we thought might be the recipe, but nothing seemed to match.

helps to wear disposable gloves when handling the chiles

sliced and julienned

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: french crullers

I went on my annual sandhill crane migration shoot in southern Colorado earlier this week with my shooting partner, Jason. We crammed driving to and from Monte Vista, four shoots, a half day at Wolf Creek (ski resort), and not a lot of sleep into 48 hours. The town of Monte Vista, Colorado holds their Crane Festival this weekend (March 9-11).

shooting at sunset

pre-dawn

tandem

silhouettes as the sun rises

A big shout out and thank you to Pro Photo Rental for supplying us with the 200-400mm Nikkor f4 and the 500mm Nikkor f4 on this trip. You can see the entire set on my photoblog. Lack of sleep combined with standing around in the dark and cold at 5 am probably resulted in the cold I came down with Wednesday evening. That made sifting through my 2,687 photos a lot of fun. But I’m on the mend now and it’s back to the business at hand. Let’s talk doughnuts. Specifically – French crullers.

all you need: eggs, flour, water, butter, salt, sugar

bring the water, butter, sugar, and salt to a boil

add the flour

French crullers are my favorite doughnuts. They are eggy and light, made from pâte à choux – a sort of fried version of the cream puff. These are the ones I always search for if we ever happen upon a doughnut shop. Jeremy goes for the chocolate-filled, drenched-in-chocolate, chocolate something or other, but I am perfectly happy with a delicate, simple French cruller.

keep stirring until a thin film forms on the pan

beat the eggs in one at a time

then beat in the whites until you get a smooth and glossy batter

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: parsnip chowder

From the moment we entered the month of March, life got busier. It wasn’t unexpected because I could see the colored tags that flooded my calendar starting in March into April through… November. It’s all good in my book. We kicked it off with a special 15th anniversary dinner at Frasca. I think Frasca is Jeremy’s favorite restaurant. In fact, I know it is. From the moment I placed the reservation, he could not shut up about going there for dinner. It was phenomenal, just like every other time we’ve been there.

appetizer sampler: cured meats, grissini, frico caldo, batter-fried shrimp

tortelloni: agribosco borlotti bean and house-made mortadella

maine sea scallops, caviar, cauliflower, meyer lemon

torta di cioccolato: chocolate cake, passionfruit caramel buttercream, mac nuts, dark chocolate gelato

sfogliata: puff pastry, brown butter-hazelnut frangipane, banana, hazelnut crumble, custard gelato

I think March also stands for Maintenance because we’re doing a lot of that with the cars, the house, our outdoor gear, my photo equipment, finances, the dog, and well… everything. Perhaps it’s that spring cleaning thing? And speaking of spring, some of my friends in other parts of the country have started talking about the arrival of strawberries. We here in Colorado are months off from strawberries. For me, spring is merely a sunnier, warmer, corn-snowier, cheery version of the winter ski season. Soup is still on the menu.

so are parsnips

potatoes, parsnips, onion, parsley, milk, half and half, butter, bacon

peeled parsnips, washed potatoes and parsley

We always forget how much we love parsnips until we taste that sweet, earthy spice of this root vegetable. It looks like a white carrot with exaggerated proportions. They are cousins. I willingly eat the hell out of both. So this recipe for parsnip chowder appealed to me when I was looking to change up our soup rotation. A big pot of soup lasts for several days around here.

diced: parsnips, potatoes, onions

oh, did i mention there is bacon?

**Jump for more butter**